Best Buy giving bonuses because of corporate tax cuts

Best Buy is the latest major corporation to hand out worker bonuses and to make additional charitable donations as a result of the recently passed corporate tax cuts.

In a letter to employees Friday, CEO Hubert Joly said full-time workers will receive a one-time bonus of $1,000 and part-timers, $500.

All permanent employees who are not on an existing bonus plan will receive the additional funds. The bonuses will show up in workers’ paychecks this month.

In all, more than 100,000 of Best Buy’s 125,000 employees in the U.S., Mexico and Canada are expected to receive the extra cash.

In addition, the Richfield-based retailer is making a one-time contribution of $20 million to the Best Buy Foundation to help further expand its teen tech centers and Geek Squad academies across the United States. A portion also will be used to create a nationwide employee volunteer program aimed at teenagers and technology.

“Our goal was simple: to say ‘thank you’ to more than 100,000 of our employees and help accelerate our work to bring much needed technology training to 1 million underserved teens a year,” said Jeff Shelman, a Best Buy spokesman.

In recent days, other major retailers including Lowe’s, Home Depot and Walmart have also said they will give bonuses, expand benefits and raise wages in light of the tax measures. Walmart said last month it will raise its starting wage for hourly employees to $11 and Lowe’s said it would give one-time bonuses of up to $1,000 to workers based on their length of service.

In Minnesota, U.S. Bancorp and TCF Financial have also handed out bonuses to workers and increased charitable donations. U.S. Bank said it would raise the minimum wage of its hourly employees to $15. Wells Fargo, which has a large corporate presence in the Twin Cities, also raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour after President Donald Trump signed the tax law and said it would donate $400 million to nonprofits.